Customer Reviews

The Lightlings

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

biblical story of salvation in an allegorical tale of a people known as the lightlings, which is sure to captivate a young audience.

Book Structure:

The bulk of this short book is the tale itself. We meet meet Charlie Cobb who asks a perplexing question to his mom before going to bed, "Mommy? Why am I afraid of the dark?" His mom, not knowing what to say, offers the suggestion of asking Charlie's grandpa the next day. The next day before dinner, Charlie asks Grandpa the question; thus, the allegorical story begins.

A helpful addition is included at the end where parents have the ability to lead their kids in a deeper assessment of the rich biblical truths presented in the story:

3. The King made the lightlings to shine like Him. What was special
about God's creation of people?

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish
of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. -- Genesis 1:26-27

When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. -- Genesis 5:1

Notable Quotes:

* "The father lightling answered, `He is not my son. He is the Son of the King of Light. The King has given Him to us as a special gift. He has been born for us. When He grows up, He will be called the Light of the World. There will be no darkness strong enough to hide His light, no darkness deep enough to send His light away.'"
* "Grandpa looked at Charlie and said, `You see, Charlie, we're afraid of the dark because we were made to live in the light. But someday, all of us who love this Son will live with Him forever in heaven. When we go to the dwelling place of the Son, who is now the Light of the World, there will be no darkness at all. Not only that, there will be no moon. There won't be any stars or even a sun. There'll be no night lights, no lamps, no lanterns, not even any candles.'"
* `Charlie, let me make a suggestion. Every time you see the sun, the moon, or the stars, or light a candle, or turn on your night light, remember the story of the child the King of Light brought into the darkness of this world. And remember that He gave us this baby as a present. As long as you remember that, you will never, ever have to be afraid of the darkness again.'

Conclusion:

Though the intended audience is for ages 6 through 12, I particularly enjoyed the simplicity of this allegory. I look forward to the day, Lord willing, when I will have the duty and responsibility of rearing my children in the ways of God and sharing with them the deep doctrines of sin, grace, salvation, and redemption found in Christ.

I think Sproul's tale will spark the interest of many kids, along with the beautiful illustrations by Justin Gerard.

Here we have two of my favorites rolled into one--stories about Christmas, and stories for children. R.C. Sproul--pastor, teacher, founder of Ligonier Ministries, and radio/tv personality from Renewing Your Mind--has penned a pleasant little allegory that speaks to children. He teams up with artist Justin Gerard to present this book for children dealing with fear of the dark.

I'll start with the artwork. The images are beautiful and inspiring to the young mind. Imaginations will run wild when your children are paging through this book. The book is worth your money and your time for the pictures alone.

In terms of literature, the book begins with almost too much detail before the story begins. We are introduced to Charlie Cobb who is afraid of the dark. Even with the specific details into his nightly bedtime routine, we fall in love with Charlie, and want to comfort him. But like his mom, we feel much better leaving the answers to tough questions like "why am I afraid of the dark?" to Grandpa (who conveniently will be over tomorrow for dinner).

Grandpa's story, told to a Charlie snuggled into Grandpa's lap, is one that tells of the history of a beautiful people who turned away from their maker and lost their inner "light". People familiar with biblical stories will see the stories of creation, the Fall, and the birth of Jesus all wrapped up in a short readable tale. It is heartwarming and helps Charlie deal with his fear of the dark even offering advice on how to overcome that fear in the future. While the book isn't strictly a Christmas book, it would be a great read during the holiday season because it explains not only the coming of the Son of God, but why He came in the first place.

Like many children's books, this one is less written on the child's level for reading than written as a "read to me" book. It provides great time for parents or grandparents to read with their little loved ones. The book includes some learning questions after the story to help guide discussion about issues addressed. Sproul also includes Bible verses to help parents in their discussion of the questions.

The Lightlings is an excellent tool to use not only in answering questions about fear of the dark, but also to aid in giving word pictures to help children to understand God and salvation as well. The beautiful pictures, the heartwarming story, and the prospect of spending special time with the little ones makes this a book that should be sought after by parents and grandparents alike. It has made me want to search for Sproul's other children's books - The King without a Shadow and The Priest with Dirty Clothes.

I was given this book by a friend of mine for our kids this past Christmas and decided to finally read it to my oldest son this past week. No reason not to read it before besides the mere fact that I just overlooked it.

The story by R.C. Sproul is an allegory to the creation and fall of man and then the coming of Christ for redemption. The lightlings are a people that were created by the King of Light but they didn't follow His rules and so they were turned over to the darkness. After some time in the darkness they notice in the distance a light shining. The younger lightlings were curious and decide to go check it out and find that it is the King of Light's son to return the light to the lightlings.

My 5 year old son was on top of the story pretty well, understanding who was God and who was Jesus and also the sin of the lightlings. What he didn't understand, and kind of made the story lose focus, was the fact that the lightlings were little fairy creatures that my son thought were angels. I had to correct him and tell him that it was just a story to try and show us who God is, what we have done in our sin and the coming of Christ into the world. He understood afterwards, but that one question for me was enough to question the book as a whole.

I did like the parallel and thought the story was done very well, but I wish that the illustrations of the lightlings would have been more geared to not look like little fairies or little angels. I know that it is fiction and just a parallel but it did confuse my son when he first went through the book with me.

The only other thing that I wish R.C. Sproul would have done was include the actual biblical account at the end of the story. This would have made a complete book. Instead, Dr. Sproul puts a glossary at the end of the book to describe who each person is, but to read that to a child is a little weird. I only say this because there are some Christian parents who need the aid of drawing out the biblical principles of even a children's book. Although, there are discussion questions that will aid in this, I would have rather have had those questions AND the story end with the actual biblical description. This could just be personal preference though.

Overall, I liked the parallel (even more so if the description came at the end) but wish that the illustrations would have been geared to something different (even though the actual illustrations were very well done). Not Recommended

I won't rehash the plot of the story, since so many other reviewers already have done so (and quite well). :)

First things first: I am definitely an RC Sproul fan. I very much appreciate his God-given ability to share Truth in a straight-forward, blunt, matter-of-fact manner. That being said, after reading this book I'm not so sure that signature "Sproul style" works as well in what is supposed to be an allegorical fantasy tale.

To me, the best parts of the book are the illustrations... which are simply beautiful and enchanting; without them there would be no real "fantastical" nature to the story at all. Not to say that the Biblical account of creation, fall, and salvation through Christ has to be told in a fantastical way (since it stands on its own as the greatest Story ever told... because it's true!)... but if one is to attempt to retell the Story in allegory, perhaps a bit more imagination should be used. A few issues that stuck out for me in particular are (1) the audience is not told how the Lightlings sinned, just that they did sin (which, of course, requires a lot of explanation from parents with now no help from the story to illustrate), (2) the Lightlings ran away from God... He didn't kick them out of the "Eden"-type forest as is told in Genesis (so we're not getting to the important issue of God's perfection and our depravity), and (3) the Grandpa at the end doesn't put the pieces together as well as he could have for Charlie (one more sentence saying something like "You see, we are just like the Lightlings" would have helped). Many of these issues are addressed in the teaching questions included at the end of the book (and are done very well), but I would have appreciated if more had been included in the story itself.

Summing up, the allegorical idea of the book is great, the illustrations are wonderful, and the teaching questions at the end are right on point and useful, but the execution of the story itself is just a bit lacking in my opinion. But I'm still a huge Sproul fan!

I received this book free in exchange for my review. The opinions expressed herein are honest and entirely my own.

Yesterday afternoon I sat down and read The Lightlings. It was a very quick read. It's written for about 5-8 year old children. The vocabulary is right about that level and the illustrations are very engaging. The illustrations were my favorite part.

The story was okay. I think it could have been a lot better though. In not adding in too many details, the heart of the story seemed to be missing. The biggest hole in the story was why the king of the lightlings sent the baby to live among them. Without knowing the reason, it didn't make sense to me. What I felt as I finished the story, was that I just wanted more. More details, more story. I think this story would have been better fleshed out with more details written for 7-10 year olds.

This book is okay, it isn't bad, necessarily, but I just think it could have been so much better! It might be nice to check out of the library, but I think there are other books that would help children understand God's story more easily and gain a deeper understanding.

Please note that this review is based upon a pdf file of this book, not a hardcover copy, which I received as a complimentary copy from Reformation Trust for review.

"The Lightlings" by R.C. Sproul is a children's allegory that parallels the story of the first Sin and God's perfect gift of His son as payment for that sin.

The story begins with a little boy named Charlie who asks his Grandfather why he and so many others are afraid of the dark. The Grandfather replies by telling Charlie a fairy-tale-esque story about the King of Light who created a group of people who were supposed to shine as brightly as He did and called them the "lightlings."

From there the lightlings decide to disobey their King. As soon as they do, they become filled with shame and cannot stand the thought of their King seeing them, or their shame, and so they flee into the darkness. The King slowly removes his light from the garden where the lightlings once lived and the lightlings stumble around in the dark for a while. However, one day some lightling children see a glow off in the distance and so they journey to see what's going on. When they reach the source of the light, they discover that it is a baby and he is shining brightly. When they ask the parents who the child is, they find out that he is the King of Light's son. They go back to their homes, but their faces continue to reflect the light that came from the baby. Slowly, more and more light comes into the forest and the lightlings realize that living in the light is much better than living in the darkness.

I liked the idea of this story - and was looking forward to reading it. However, either because it is so short, or because it is written for a very young age group, or because the allegory was so incredibly obvious, I felt that the story itself fell short of my expectations. I don't mind allegories, but this one was so glaring and undisguised that it actually detracted from my reading enjoyment. It was almost too much of a distraction. It sort of hit too much in-between for me. I love fairy tales, I love fantasy, and I love discovering God's truth in fiction. However, I felt that this story should have been more of a fairy-tale with the Biblical truths being a little more subtle, or the author shouldn't have tried to turn it into a fairy tale at all (to clarify: in the illustrations, the Lightlings are little fairy creatures with wings).

However, despite my issues with the quality of the story itself, I loved that this book conveyed Biblical truths. I appreciated that the last two pages contained a "reader's guide" with questions and Bible passages to discuss the deeper truths within the story. I also liked the story-within-a-story device that the author used. The illustrations are beautiful and plentiful. I loved that the reader can get the gist of the story from the illustrations alone.

The true test: my two year old daughter really likes looking at the pictures and seems to enjoy the story, so it is definitely one we will read more than once and will gladly add to our family library.


**Many thanks to Reformation Trust Publishing Group for providing this book for review. They did not ask for a positive review, merely one that is "serious, substantive, and fair."

First off, let me just say this: what a wonderfully creative way to explain such complicated biblical concepts to young children! In the tale, Charlie asks his mother why he, and others, are afraid of the dark. Not knowing quite how to answer the question for Charlie, she suggests that he ask his grandfather the next evening when he comes to dinner. When Charlie asks his grandfather this question the following evening, he responds "...not only are lots of people afraid of the dark, many people are afraid of the light." This answer confuses Charlie, so his grandfather decides to tell him a story in order to help him understand. Thus begins the story of The Lightlings.

The Lightlings are essentially little fairy-like creatures, created by The King of Light. They shone bright as he did and lived happily in a beautiful, sun-bathed garden. Eventually The Lightlings lost their way, and hid in the darkness away from The King of Light.

One day they saw a very bright light shining in their very dark forest. Some were scared and hid themselves, but the youngest lightlings were curious and decided to investigate. They eventually discovered another family of lightlings who were holding a baby lightling that shone brightly.They are told that the baby Lightling will make their world light again and he would chase away the darkness.

The Lightlings are so excited by this news and run back to the others to tell them of this baby who would save them from the darkness. Some were afraid of the light and ran away to hide themselves, but most were happy and danced happily in the light that began to creep into their forest.

Charlie's Grandfather explains, "You see, Charlie, we're afraid of the dark because we were made to live in the light. But someday, all of us who love this Son will live with Him forever in heaven. When we go to the dwelling place of the Son, who is now the Light of the World, there will be no darkness at all." He then offers this advice to Charlie about his fear of the dark: "Every time you see the sun, the moon, or the stars, or light a candle, or turn on your night light, remember the story of the child the King of Light brought into the darkness of this world. And remember that He gave us this baby as a present. As long as you remember that, you will never, ever have to be afraid of the darkness again."

I really enjoyed this book. It's written is such a way that even small children can comprehend the basic story, but that older children will be able to delve deeper into the meanings and symbolism of the story. I'd say and age range of between 4-10 would be appropriate. There is also a Question and Answer section, that contains bible references, in the back of the book that will prove to be helpful when older children start to ask questions in regards to theme, character, events, etc. The absolutely beautiful illustrations will help to keep children of all ages engaged in the story.

In conclusion, wonderful book, stunning illustrations. I'd definitely recommend it for any Christian household with children. I'll definitely be looking into Sproul's other children's books, The Prince's Poison Cup, The King Without a Shadow, and The Priest with the Dirty Clothes.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher, Reformation Trust Publishing. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

"You know, not only are lots of people afraid of the dark, many people are afraid of the light," said Grandpa to Charlie.

In R.C. Sproul's Lightlings, Grandpa tells Charlie the story of the King of Light and His children--the lightlings. The lightlings lived in the happiness and warmth of the light of the king until the day that they sinned. Then their lights grew dim, they became afraid of the King and his light, and they hid themselves in the dark. That is, until the King's Son, the Light of the World, was born.

Dr. Sproul's little allegory is perfect for teaching the story of redemption to children. Ours love hearing it, and we love reading it to them. And the illustrations are amazing; Justin Gerard has done a beautiful job. This is one of my family's favorite children's books. It would make the perfect gift for your children, your grandchildren, or the noisy little child next door.

The Lightlings

This was the first children's book that I have read by R. C. Sproul. It was a strange change for me to shift from his deep writings to this more childish tome. Let that not discredit the merit of this book, or the usefulness of it for our children. His attempt should be greatly appreciated. What Sproul has attempted here is to bring theology down to the level of children and to get them to appreciate and understand our God. Perhaps this should be a standard pursuit of those who are in the pastorate. Explaining something so complex in a simple way is essential in the telling of the gospel. I am most grateful, then, to Sproul for taking the chance and putting together the book The Lightlings.
Justin Gerard a children's story illustrator worked along with Sproul in order to create this book. I was most appreciate of his pictures and the beautiful details on the pages. Some illustrators distract from the text but Gerard showed great talent as he merged story with picture.
The basis for The Lightlings comes from 1 John 1:5: "God is light and in him is no darkness at all." From that springboard Sproul launches into an allegorical tale of the creation, the fall, to redemption. This allegory was well thought out and made this era of scripture accessible to children.
The story concerns a young boy named Charley Cobb who is afraid of the dark. He asks his mother why he is afraid and his mom tells him to ask his grandfather. The grandfather tells Charlie a story to make him feel better concerning darkness.
What I did not like from the Lightlings comes from a story teller perspective. At the end of the story Grandpa fills Charlie in with a suggestion of what to do with his fear of the dark:

Grandpa replied, "Charlie, let me make a suggestion.
Every time you see the sun, the moon, or the stars, or light
a candle, or turn on your night light, remember the story
of the child the King of Light brought into the darkness of
this world. And remember that He gave us this baby as a
present. As long as you remember that, you will never, ever
have to be afraid of the darkness again."

I know this is picky but it seems like an inadequate answer for a young child as to what to do with his fear. I was expecting an answer like God is the same during the day and during the night so you do not have to be afraid. Or God sent the Light Child down so there is no more night technically because you are now one of the Children of Light.

Conclusion: Despite my pickiness with the text, Lightlings is a good book that I will read to my children. It also has alerted me to the fact that theologians need to constantly be putting "high truths" into simple language in order to teach others.

We all know kids are sometimes afraid of the dark. But, did you know that some people are afraid of the light? In The Lightlings well-known theologian R. C. Sproul creates a wonderful allegory about the story of redemption. He combines the stories of Adam and Eve and the Nativity.

In Sproul's tale, the King of Light created people who loved the light and they shone brightly, as did the King. The King called his people the little lightlings. They shared in the King's company and light until they decided to disobey him and go their own way. When they did so, the light left them and they hid in the darkness. They became very afraid of the light, as they were afraid the King would find them and punish them. After much time in the darkness, a bright light appeared in the sky. Some of the younger lightlings wandered off, searching for the light. They found it, in the form of a small family, a mother, father and a newborn baby of light. The children, both fascinated and fearful of the light, stayed and worshipped the new baby. When they returned to their people, they took some of their new light with them. Those lightlings who listened and believed in the story told by the youngsters, were no longer afraid of the light.

The author quotes 1 John 1:15 at the beginning of the book: "God is Light, and in him is no darkness at all." He has also included a special section in the back of the book for parents, designed to help their children understand the story in the book and the message of salvation.

The illustrations are beautiful in color and texture. Children and adults will both marvel at their detail.

What I Like: The story is written in a very child-friendly manner and the illustrations are amazing.

What I Dislike: At the beginning of the story about the King and the Lightlings, the narrator starts off with the words, "Once upon a time." I don't suppose there's any harm in it, but I just don't like Bible-related stories that start with those words. That brings to mind a fairy tale, and the Bible is not a fairy tale.

Overall Rating: Very good.

Age Appeal: The publisher doesn't give an age group, but I'd say children 4-8 would enjoy listening to the story being read to them, and children older than that would like to read the story themselves.

Christine M. Irvin - Christian Children's Book Review